This was long before Russell Wilson was one win away from his first championship, before he was held up as the future of the sport at his position, before he was even a third-round draft pick for the Seahawks who many scouts thought should pursue a baseball career instead.

This was Dec. 29, 2008, in Birmingham, Ala., in a football game that received slightly (ahem) less attention than his next one will. This was the PapaJohns.com Bowl, in a half empty stadium, with an opposing team that had no idea they were facing a future NFL superstar.

No one should blame the Rutgers players for that. Because, other than Wilson himself, who out there did?

“I thought at the time that he was going to have a future, maybe as a decent backup in the NFL,” said Kevin Malast, a linebacker on that Rutgers team. “But this? No, I didn’t see this.”

This is a quarterback headed for greatness, no matter what happens when he faces one – Peyton Manning – who is already there on Sunday. The Super Bowl hype engine has churned out a few million words on his potential, so it seems silly to add to that pile with the game this close now.

But when the NFLPA sends out a press release that Wilson, just 25, has overtaken Manning has been total retail sales, it’s clear that the future has already arrived in the eyes of many.

The appeal is easy to see. His story is an illustration of why writing off an athlete because of his size or strength is dangerous, and an inspiration for anyone who doesn’t fit the mold. Wilson, at 5-foot-11, was written off as too short to be a quarterback in a league that demand its passers to be (at least) four inches taller.

Wilson sums up it best: “That’s one of the reasons that I left playing baseball, to be honest with you. I had this urge to play the game of football, because so many people said I couldn’t do it. For me, it was one of those things that I just believe in my talent that the Lord gave me and I wanted to take advantage of it.”

So that day in Birmingham six years ago, there were few hints of greatness. The setting itself hardly lent itself to that. Put it this way: The Papajohns.com Bowl was such a mess, it even ran out of pizza.

Most of the Rutgers players knew they were facing a very good college quarterback, one who already had established himself as a redshirt freshman. But they did not think they were preparing to face somebody they’d watch in the Super Bowl someday.

Then again, the way Wilson played in the first half of that game, maybe they had a hint before anyone else.

“I remember the defensive players were really talking him up,” said Mike Teel, the quarterback of that team, “but I was like, ‘So he’s a little kid, he’ll probably run around and make a few plays or something.’ After the first quarter, I was like, ‘Okay. They were right.’”

Wilson passed for 186 yards rushed for another 46 yards on eight carries, and Rutgers – trailing 17-6 with his N.C. State team moving into position to pad that lead – was in big trouble.

“He was so tough to play against,” Malast said. “We’d cover them so well and he’d just take off running. He could scramble and read the defenses on the run so well, which I think is unbelievable.”

It was on one of those scrambles, a 16-yard gain just before halftime, that Rutgers caught a break. Wilson hurt his knee when he went to the turf, and while the redshirt freshman protested, his head coach Tom O’Brien – to his credit – would not let him back into the game and risk further injury.

The Wolfpack used two backup quarterbacks in the second half and both struggled mightily. Rutgers, behind 319 yards and two touchdowns from Teel, rallied for the 29-23 victory.

Mike Teel was the MVP of the Papajohns.com Bowl, but the other quarterback made a bit of a bigger name for himself in the years that followed.

William Perlman/The Star-Ledger

So there is the answer the Broncos have been studying film for the past two weeks to answer, the key to stopping Wilson. “Yeah, just get him out of the game,” former defensive lineman Eric LeGrand said with a laugh.

Teel, for the record, was voted the MVP of the game. When a friend told him he had one-upped a Super Bowl quarterback, Teel, now an assistant coach at Kean, cracked, “I may have won the battle but I think he won the war.”

They’ll all be watching on Sunday – LeGrand from a suite at MetLife, thanks to the generosity of a stranger, and Teel and Malast with friends. They agree that it’s hard to believe, just six years ago, they were trying to beat him in a minor bowl game in Birmingham.

They couldn’t have imagined then that he would be on the biggest stage in the sport already. Then again, who did?